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40 Ways I Embarrass My Children

Recently, my daughter, who is 12, was invited to a special event at the mayor’s office. It was very exciting, and when we arrived, I ran into another Mom whose daughter was being recognized for the same thing. I greeted them in what I thought was a regular and normal way, until my daughter glared at me and said, “Mom…stop.”

“What?”

“Stop.”

“Stop what? What am I doing?”

“You are embarrassing me.”

“What did I do?”

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

I dutifully shushed and sat quiet, silently running over the greeting again in my mind and could not come up with anything I did that was even remotely embarrassing. The problem, I concluded, was with her and not me, and so, I brushed it off.

A week later, I crossed the street with my son, three years younger than my daughter, and exchanged pleasantries with the crossing guard. I got the same familiar glare from him after we walked away.

“What’s the matter?”

“You are so embarrassing!”

“What do you mean? What did I do?”

“You laughed!”

“So what?”

“She didn’t even say anything funny!”

It’s true that I’m socially awkward and often laugh at things that aren’t really funny, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it is embarrassing. Then again, he is just a kid, and he does, in fact, tend toward the self-conscious. Also, I have never seen a video of myself socializing with a crossing guard. Maybe he has every right to be mortified.

I began to pay better attention to whenever my kids cringed, rolled their eyes or otherwise glared at me after I said or did something I thought was innocuous and, as many bloggers are known to do, kept a running list. Here are 40 things I should never do again to spare my children any embarrassment: